Ambulance service in critical condition

AN ambulance staffing crisis is forcing rookies with just nine weeks' training onto the streets to try to save lives without proper supervision.

One in three NSW Ambulance Service officers is a trainee because experienced staff are quitting in record numbers, fed up with being overworked and underpaid, front-line sources say.

Last year there were twice as many resignations as in 2002.

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Tensions among those left behind are said to have reached breaking point, the sources say, with suicide attempts increasing.

One senior officer said patient care was being compromised by the exodus of experienced officers.

"Make no mistake, patients have died because of this and they will continue to die," she said.

A copy of the service's 2007 corporate culture survey leaked to The Sun-Herald paints a grim portrait of chronically poor morale and employees who feel undervalued, restricted in how they go about their work and disengaged from decision-making processes.

The vast majority believe their supervisors do not deal effectively with key issues such as stress, excessive workloads, absenteeism, harassment and bullying, and are not addressing their concerns about industrial relations.

NSW Health Minister Reba Meagher last week countered criticisms of the service's capabilities by pointing to the recruitment of 327 personnel over the past four years.

However, Freedom of Information figures obtained by the Opposition and seen by The Sun-Herald show 475 resignations over the same period.

Novice ambulance attendants who might normally spend more than a year teamed up with two fully qualified partners are being thrown in the deep end, sources say.

A NSW Ambulance Service spokesman insisted trainees were placed under "close supervision at all times" but Health Services Union Hunter Valley officer Peter Rumball disputed this, saying the practice of pairing trainees with a single unqualified trainer to save money was commonplace.

Mr Rumball said the union had repeatedly raised concerns about how one senior officer was supposed to supervise a trainee when he or she had more than one patient to treat at a time, or if the pair had to split up, or one had to stay with a patient while the other drove to hospital or went off to retrieve equipment.

"Officers who come straight out of the service's rescue school get no supervision or mentoring at all," Mr Rumball said.

"They are classed as fully qualified even though they have never undertaken a rescue."

A paramedic with 10 years' experience said rookies were being pushed onto the front line without proper regard for the consequences.

"You have a situation where they are performing extremely demanding tasks without the proper supervision and that is where errors can be made," she said.

"The way the roster system is set up is that at training stations there should be 10 fully qualified officers.

"But how it is now is that out of those 10, two or three are trainee officers and are actually not qualified but they are rostered on to fill out those positions.

"The trainees are being used to fill the holes and are just thrown straight in."

Opposition health spokeswoman Jillian Skinner said the number of calls she was receiving from ambulance officers in distress outstripped even those from within the ranks of the state's 40,000 nurses.

"This issue is all about long-suffering ambulance officers who are under enormous stress, not getting any support and burning out," Ms Skinner said.

"The fact that they're resigning at a faster rate than ever before speaks for itself.

"What we're talking about is people at the coalface being forced to bear the brunt when, instead, it should be the Government dealing with it."

Mr Rumball said his concerns about stress levels of the job were grave, and he knew of five colleagues who had attempted suicide in the past few years.